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September 8, 2012

“NAFTA on Steroids”

(Rainforest Action Network) - I just got word that a round
of closed door negotiations will begin this week for the largest free trade
agreement in history. I am talking about NAFTA on steroids—an 11-country free
trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Right now, negotiations for the TPP are being conducted in
secret. The corporate lobbyists pushing for this agreement include a who’s who
list of Big Oil, Big Ag and Wall Street power brokers. Our country’s
negotiators have granted approximately 600 of these corporate lobbyists access
to the negotiating texts while flatly refusing to show the agreement to the
public. Even members of Congress are left in the dark on the actual contents of
the agreement!

Among the corporations pushing hardest for this agreement is
none other than Cargill, the leading importer of forest-destroying palm oil
into the United States. If the TPP is successful, Cargill will be able to
export Malaysian palm oil tariff-free to the 11 partner nations involved in the
agreement.

At the behest of companies like Cargill, U.S. trade
negotiators are pushing hard for the Trans-Pacific Partnership to include
so-called “investor-state” provisions that would grant transnational corporations
the power to challenge virtually any environmental law, regulation or court
decision that negatively affects their expectation of profits.

As you know, current trade rules have helped cement
unsustainable production and consumption patterns worldwide. These rules have
allowed companies to move operations to wherever labor and environmental
standards are the weakest, wreaking havoc on forests, communities and the
climate. Every country that will be part of the TPP is home to tropical
rainforests or other endangered forest ecosystems that we need to be
protecting, not exploiting.

There is still a chance to stop the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, but time is running out. Send a message to stop this trade
agreement today. Your message will be hand delivered to US trade
representatives, as well.

We must learn our lessons from the failed trade
agreements of the past and stake out a different course for the future, where
peoples' lives and livelihoods are protected. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is
going in the wrong direction at a time when we must strengthen environmental
protections, not facilitate a race to the bottom in environmental deregulation.

I'm a Master Naturalist and an outdoor enthusiast -- mostly kayaking, and I live on a Peninsula in the Chesapeake Bay. I'm the author of The Nature Fan, Nature Fan Activists, Green Earth Almanac, and Amanda's Geographic. Formerly, I ran the nationally syndicated column "National Green Activism" for The Examiner, and I was a key factor in the success of many campaigns. Make sure you don't miss a post, and subscribe by email! Thanks for reading.